College Football: Lessons Learned After Week 4 for the Oregon Ducks

Going into their week four matchup against Arizona State, the Oregon Ducks have looked unstoppable both on offense and defense. In their first three games, the Ducks have put up 149 points and only gave up 13.

After a long night in the desert, the Ducks left Tempe with a 42-31 and a conference win. Although a 11 point win may look good, the Ducks played a very sloppy game but forced Arizona State into seven turnovers, which ultimately was the key to the game.

Now that the Pac-10 conference opener is out of the way, these are the lessons that we have learned about the Ducks.

Bend but Don't Break Defense

After only giving up 13 points in their first three games, the Oregon defense gave up 31 points to the Arizona State Sun Devils. While this may seem on the surface like a bad day for the defense, there were a lot more positives then negatives, especially in the second half.

After giving up 24 points in the first half, the Ducks defense tightened up and only gave up 7 points in the second half and forced ASU into seven turnovers. The Ducks also had a pick-six touchdown and a fumble recovery for a touchdown.

While the defense did a lot of good things last night, they will have plenty to work on this week in preparation for Stanford and Andrew Luck.

New Way To Slow Down Oregon?

During the game in Tennessee, the Vols defenders often found themselves needing a stoppage in the game to work out cramps and deal with minor injuries when the Ducks were trying to speed up their offensive pace.

Last night, that trend continued at an alarming rate. Sun Devil after Sun Devil found themselves going down but then coming back a play later. While it was a truly hot night in the desert, ASU seemed to have awful look with injuries.

Hopefully all the ASU players will be good to go for their week 5 game but it was interesting to see how the injury delays did break the rhythm in the Oregon offense and also caught the eye of Chip Kelly.

When leaving the field for the half, Coach Kelly was asked on his thoughts of the game, in which Kelly commented on how it was a World Cup type atmosphere with how loud the crowd was and all the injuries.

Darron Thomas On the Read-Option

One thing that has caught the attention of many Duck fans, especially last night, was no matter what the read was, Darron Thomas was handing the ball of on the option-read. All game, ASU was focused in on the run and more specifically the handoff to the back.

There were plenty of times that Thomas should have pulled the ball out and taken off to the outside and yet, Thomas had only four carries.

With a big game coming up against Stanford at home, the Ducks need Thomas to start making better reads and have the willingness to call his own number and run the ball.

Oregon's Pass Rush Is Legit

For the second straight week, the Oregon defense recorded four sacks and were putting pressure on ASU quarterback, Steven Threet, all game long.

Coming into the season, the Oregon defensive line was viewed as a weakness but so far, they have been able to provide a solid pass rush and have not been burned by the run game so far.

Can the Real Oregon Offensive Line Please Stand Up?

While the defensive line may have been viewed as a weakness for Oregon, the offensive line was returning its two-deep and was looked upon as one of the nation best coming into the season.

Through the first three games, the offensive line had done well in opening up holes for the Oregon backs but were still not up to their standards. Last night, the line showed they still were not up to snuff both in the run and passing games.

In order for Oregon to have success through the Pac-10 schedule, the offensive line will have to find their form they had last year.

Opponents Are Targeting Talmadge Jackson Through the Air

Another trend that has continued through the first four weeks of the season is that opponents going up against the Oregon defense are testing Talmadge Jackson deep early and often.

Last night against ASU, the Sun Devils frequently went deep towards Jackson's side which for the most part resulted in either big gains, touchdowns or pass interference calls.

While Jackson did end up getting a pick, and actually had another awful call take away a second, he could truly help himself out by getting his head around and looking back for the ball on deep passes.

A Win Is a Win

Sloppy, uninspired, boring and looking forward are all ways that you could describe the way that Oregon played against ASU. The Ducks seemed to be truly going through the motions and allowing the Sun Devils to stay in a game that they were desperately trying to give away. 

Regardless of how it happened, the game ended with Oregon earning a road win in conference and moving their record to 4-0 and setting up a monster game at Autzen Stadium next week against Stanford.

While the Ducks will have a lot to work on this week and plenty to prepare for, they can do so knowing that they are still undefeated.